KAKAMMPI News

Kyodo News Posted at  Nov 28 2017 09:35 PM Filipino soldiers take positions as a U.S. military CH-47 helicopter takes off during the Balikatan war games at Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija in 2015.  Erik De Castro, Reuters/file The Philippine government said Tuesday it is uncertain which side to take in case of a military clash between North Korea and the United States and its allies, despite a mutual defense agreement between Manila and Washington. Philippine presidential spokesman Harry Roque expressed this uncertainty in the government's policy direction amid the continued heightened tensions between Pyongyang and Washington. "As of now, we're not prepared to say which side we will be on other than we want the side of, we want the (United Nations) charter followed, we want all parties to refrain from the use of force, we want all parties to utilize peaceful means in resolving this dispute," Roque said in a forum in Manila. Roque's pronouncement...

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — The Philippine Consulate here honored earlier this week the Filipino worker who helped rescue a disabled Arab who was trapped inside his car during last week's flooding. Ambassador Adnan Alonto personally handed over the plaque of apprecation to Saripada Dawood Balindong last Monday night in a simple ceremony at the Philippine Consulate. Alonto said what Balindong did — forsaking his own safety to help someone — has made the whole country proud. "Ipinakita niya po na ang Pilipino ay talagang may tapang at malasakit. Hindi ako magsasawa magbigay-pugay sa kanyang nagawa dahil it's not every day na that you see a man risk his life for a fellowman," he said. Aside from Philippine officials, Balindong has been praised by Saudi nationals as well as government officials of the Kingdom. Balindong, for his part, thanked the Embassy and the Consulate for the plaque and encouraged fellow OFWs not to think twice in helping those who ar...

  By RONALDO Z. CONCHA JEDDAH –Filipinos in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia last Monday welcomed the new Philippine ambassador to KSA Adnan V. Alonto. Representatives of various Filipino organizations in the western region of the Kingdom greeted Alonto and his wife Jo with warm welcome at a dinner program hosted by the Philippine Consulate General in Jeddah last Monday evening. Photo by RZ Concha Filipino had long awaited Alonto's appointment as the ambassador post had been vacant for more than a year, after the departure of the previous ambassador Ezzedine H. Tago. In his speech, Alonto thanked the Filipino community for the warm welcome and assured them of the governments support for all the Filipinos working in KSA.  Alonto said, “Kung wala kayo, wala kami. We are here because of you.”  He also expressed his satisfaction in the performance of Consulate officials for their good teamwork in providing services to OFWs. “It only shows t...

Twenty Filipino women were rescued by immigration officers from a prostitution syndicate at a hotel in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, where RM13 million (US$3.121 million) in cash was also recovered. Immigration officers acted on a tip that three Filipino women were held by a syndicate at a hotel, according to a  report  by The Straits Times. Officers found the three women in the hotel spa and rescued 17 other Filipinos from separate rooms when they initiated the raid. All women were aged between their late teens to their early 30's. The cash was discovered while searching for the women: RM11.9 million was found in different rooms around the hotel while RM1.17 million was recovered at a neighboring apartment. Immigration Director-General Datuk Seri Mustafar Ali said  the cash were either stuffed in envelopes and plastic bags or left in the open . A Filipino and two Malaysians aged between 30 and 50 were arrested on suspicion of being middlemen for the syndicate. ...

  By RIE TAKUMI, GMA News Hong Kong's Immigration Department and the police's Organized Crime and Triad Bureau and the Immigration Department raided three employment agencies suspected of illegally trafficking thousands of Filipino domestic helpers to other countries. The  South China Morning Post  reported, however, that no arrests were made in the inspection of the three agencies referred by the Philippine consulate to authorities for supposedly promising Filipinos high-paying jobs in Moscow. In exchange for breaking their contracts with their employers in Hong Kong and paying fees from HK$28,000 to HK$43,000, the agencies would arrange the Filipinos' flights to Russia without proper documentation. Labor attaché Jalilo Dela Torre said almost all victims borrowed the processing fees from financial institutions or loan sharks. Filipinos deep in debt often stay in Russia to work their mismatched jobs to earn their fees back and face threats from...

  A fight between Filipino and Indonesian fishermen on a squid fishing vessel in Taiwan left one Filipino dead and three others injured, according to a report by  Focus Taiwan . The deceased Filipino, identified as "Antolin," was one of two OFWs who were in the water when police arrived on the scene past midnight on Sunday. They were able to haul the Filipinos out the water but one fisherman was pronounced dead on arrival when he was rushed to a nearby hospital. Citing Chinese-language site Liberty Times,  Taiwan News  wrote that the fight broke out between the Filipino and Indonesian fishery workers while sharing food and drinks on the fishing boat Hohung No. 168. The Indonesian men allegedly retrieved aluminum bars and wooden sticks to beat the Filipinos with. The Filipinos grabbed aluminum bars to fight back but were overwhelmed by their numbers. Antolin and another Filipino were chased to the main deck and jumped overboard. Their two o...

  The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration yesterday advised Filipino workers who are presently employed overseas to be more careful about accepting offers of employment in another country.  The POEA has received reports of Filipino household service workers (HSWs) in Hong Kong, Singapore and Cyprus who were lured into transferring to another country like Dubai, Mongolia, Turkey and Russia and who later found out the conditions of employment are not what one had in mind; or worse, the offered job is non-existent.  The recruiters were mostly nationals of the third country who have Filipino partners in their illegal activities. There were reports of workers who fell into this racket paying exorbitant fees for just being able to travel to the third country using tourist visa and even without assurance of employers waiting for them.  Those who found employment later are sometimes abused by the employers, and for lack of proper work documents,...

Members of Filipino militant organizations in Hong Kong on Sunday once again pressed the Duterte administration to scrap the Overseas Employment Certificate (OEC), describing it as an unfulfilled promise. The groups —  Bagong Alyansang Makabayan–Hong Kong and Macau, Gabriela-HK, and United Filipinos in Hong Kong — held a rally at the same time to protest the Philippine government's decision to suspend the deployment of Filipino workers overseas. The groups marched from Chater Road West in Central to the Admiralty Centre, where the Philippine Consulate office is located, in Admiralty. "Hanggang sa ngayon, walang linaw ang katuparan ng mga pangakong binitawan," Bayan-HK and Macau said in a statement. "Sa halip dagdag na pabigat at hirap sa OFWs ang nagawa at gagawin ng gobyerno." The group added that deployment ban is not a solution to the problem of illegal recruitment, which Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III has cited in coming up with the de...

A Filipino worker became an instant celebrity in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, when he rescued a polio victim who was trapped inside his car that was submerged in floodwater last Tuesday. Saripada Dawood Balindong, who is from Pagadian City, ignored calls from other people in the area to stay where he was and instead used his swimming skills to rescue the man, an Arab. "Sabi ko marunong naman ako lumangoy [so] nilangoy ko na lang lalo pa't nakita ko na umuurong na palalim ['yung sasakyan]," he told GMA News in an interview. "Nakita ko sa kanya 'yung tungkod sa sasakyan niya," Balindong added. "Binuhat ko siya tapos napansin ko 'yung kaliwang paa niya na maliit." Amateur footage of the rescue shows Balindong giving a lifejacket to the disabled Arab. The lifejacket was thrown by a rescuer but it fell far from the man. According to Balindong, there were firefighters in the area but they were afraid to go to the flood due to the pos...

MOST DUE TO DRUGS Published  November 24, 2017 1:55pm  Over 400 Filipinos were sent to jail in the Western Region of Saudi Arabia from January to October this year, most of them due to drug-related charges, according to Consul General Imelda Panolong. Of the 409 jailed Filipinos, 109 — including 14 females — were due to illegal drugs, Panolong said. This was followed by theft and falsification of public documents, which both sent 21 Filipinos to jail. Panolong said most of the Filipinos who were charged with falsification of public documents were nurses who were discovered to have fake certificates of employment and of experience. Meanwhile, 13 Filipinos, most of them women, were jailed due to immorality/prostitution, while 11 were due to unpaid debts. On the other hand, nine Filipinos were incarcerated due to murder. Of the 409 jailed Filipinos as of October, only 212 Filipinos remained behind bars as of November as some had already been d...

  By JUN AMPARO I had arranged a personal interview with Johnny (pseudonym) at Black Canyon at the Robinson Mall, a famous shopping mall in Thailand. He is like a younger brother to me. In fact, Johnny and his wife are close to our two children as they play with them mostly on weekends. Sometimes we would go out with our families to have dinner together. They are wonderful people and have been OFWs in Thailand for a couple of years. Johnny is a school teacher, including his wife. However, his wife recently moved to another country to find a better job opportunity. So, Johnny’s wife was not around when I conducted the interview. It was ten in the morning. I ordered iced chocolate latte for both of us before I got my computer and a paper to take down notes. Then Johnny started to share his story. A few years back, Johnny and his wife-to-be (who was already pregnant that time) were planning to have their wedding. The options were to have a simple wedding ...

By  RIE TAKUMI Officials suspected of involvement in illegal recruitment will be suspended from duty, reshuffled, or removed from duty and charged if proven guilty at the end of the Department of Labor and Employment's (DOLE) investigation. Labor Undersecretary Dominador Say said at a press conference on Tuesday that about 40 security guards and janitors would also be replaced for their supposed compliance in the illegal recruitment schemes at the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA). “May mga reports kasi tayo na nagagamit po yung ating mga security guards at janitors dun sa illegal activities. Either ginagawa silang bagman or runner. Ito po ang napakasakit, dahil siyempre yung ating mga security guards na dapat ay nagtatrabaho ay nagagamit ng ating mga tiwaling opisyal,” he said. “Bibigyan po natin ng pagkakataon na imbestigahan natin ito, kung dapat palitan ay papalitan po natin, upang sa ganun wala na silang maging conspirators,” Say continued. “We'll...

A batch of 47 distressed Overseas Filipino Workers  from Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Saturday morning. The Manila International Airport Authority’s Media Affairs Division said the 47 OFWs arrived at NAIA Terminal 1 at 6:50 a.m. aboard Philippine Airlines flight PR663.  They were welcomed home by members of the Repatriation Team of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), which will also provide them livelihood assistance. The newly-repatriated OFWs is the most recent batch of returning migrant workers from Jeddah   amid Saudization , or the prioritization of Saudi nationals in the Middle Eastern country’s workforce, resulting in a crackdown on Saudi Arabia’s overstaying, undocumented, and runaway foreign workers. Saudi Arabia in late March  offered a 90-day amnesty  for illegal expatriates, allowing them to apply for exit travel permits. Over 2,000 OFWs who applied for the am...

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) is studying the viability of deploying Filipino workers, particularly health professionals, in the Republic of San Marino, a microstate in northeast Italy. In a statement Thursday, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said an assessment team has been formed to undertake the study. The team is tasked to study the San Marino nursing and caregiving professional regulatory framework and look into the possibility of enabling the Filipino professionals to work there. Bello said the team will also identify all possible deployment modalities, such as POEA deployment, Movement of Natural Persons (MNP), under the General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS). Bello also said he wants the team to look into how opportunities can be maximized under a proposed Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Home Services between San Marino and the Philippines. The team is chaired by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) and c...

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III on Wednesday expressed confidence that the labor accord on the protection of migrant workers signed by ASEAN leaders on Tuesday night will not be a mere scrap of paper. Interviewed on News To Go, Bello said he believes that even if the accord is not legally binding, ASEAN member countries will still heed its provisions, which include, among others, allowing migrant workers to join unions and prohibiting employers from confiscating their workers' passports. "Hindi ka naman pipirma for the sake of signing, but you will sign with the intention na you will comply with the provision that you are going to sign," he said. The ASEAN Consensus on the Protection and Promotion of Rights of Migrant Workers, Bello said, can be a way of forging bilateral agreements between each ASEAN nation to give the accord more teeth. "When you sign that agreement and it involves the promotion of the welfare and the protection of the OFWs or the mi...

A Filipina cleaner and caterer assistant will finally get her passport back along with her backpay months after her employer unceremoniously cancelled her visa and held her passport hostage, according to Bahrain's  DT News . Jeny Agbulig will receive her documents seven months after her sponsor and employer cancelled her work visa unannounced on May 2, 2017, the report said. Months prior to this, Agbulig was told to stop working and given three options for her release — pay her sponsor 300 Bahraini dollars for her passport, use her pending salaries to pay for her airline ticket, or continue working for 70 Bahraini dollar. Agbulig was hired by her employer and received her work visa in August 2016. From that month to March this year, she and her colleagues were reportedly subjected to more than 15-hour workdays, had no fixed working hours, and were not given salary slips nor copies of their offer letters or employment contracts. Even when they complained, Agbulig said ...

By RIE TAKUMI, GMA News Unknown persons have used the Veloso family's name supposedly to raise funds for a trip to visit Mary Jane in Indonesia without the family's prior knowledge or consent. On Friday, Celia Veloso, the mother of the convicted migrant, said that their name had supposedly been used for a collection drive held on the anniversary of her daughter's stay from execution at the premises of the municipal hall of Talavera, Nueva Ecija. "Hindi namin alam (kung sino nanghingi). Nalaman ko lang sa balae ko, biyenan ni Mary Jane, sa city hall sa Talavera, nasabi daw. 'Aling Tessie, may pumunta po dito na humingi ng tulong, pamasahe daw ng pamilya Veloso', kaya namin nalaman," Mrs. Veloso said. "Hindi naman kami humihingi, pero nagbigay ang city hall ng pera, ng pamasahe daw ng Pamilya Veloso," she said. "Hindi naman kami umaalis eh... Baka ang alam naman ng mga tao, baka dadalaw kami, pero hindi ho nakakarating sa amin." ...

By ERWIN COLCOL, GMA News ACTS OFW party-list Representative Aniceto "John" Bertiz III welcomed the signing of an agreement among ASEAN countries that would protect the rights of migrant workers in the region. In a statement, Bertiz said the pact demonstrated the ASEAN's vision of a caring and sharing community. "We are also now telling the world that our regional bloc is a sterling example of how labor-sending and labor-receiving countries can cooperate to ensure that migrant rights are protected," he added. The landmark document, according to ASEAN chair President Rodrigo Duterte, would "strengthen social protection, access to justice, humane and fair treatment, and access to health services for our people." Bertiz also commended Duterte and the Departments of Foreign Affairs, Labor and Employment, and Social Welfare and Development for their efforts in making the signing of the document possible. "Truly, the Philippines has become ...